Flagler economic board gets lesson on education

Economic development isn't just about offering companies incentive packages to expand or move operations to a community. It is also focused on helping to build a skilled workforce to fill the positions those companies create.

Members of Flagler County's Economic Opportunity Advisory Council learned about those efforts firsthand Wednesday morning from Daytona State College President Tom LoBasso and Flagler Schools Superintendent James Tager.

LoBasso, who took over as DSC president in 2015, said the college serves 26,000 students on five campuses, including 1,500 students at its Palm Coast campus.

"In our master plan for Flagler County, the full build-out is six or seven buildings," he said in response to a question about how many Flagler students attend classes at the main campus in Daytona Beach. "The goal is we would add more programs so they don't have to travel."

LoBasso said the college has several initiatives underway to meet workforce needs and respond to emerging business trends. One of those is the beverage science lab, which he said was "code for our microbrewery."

LoBasso said the state-of-the-art facility offers students practical experience in microbrewing and is set to open this summer on the Daytona Beach campus.

"It's an emerging niche in the hsopitality industry," he said.

Another initiative is DSC's construction program, which aims to address a critical shortage of skilled workers in the building trades.

LoBasso said the school has two sections of the program with a total of 27 students and the capacity to have as many as 40 enrolled.

"It's been a challenge trying to shift the mindset of middle-school kids that this is a viable career," he said.

LoBasso said collaboration with community groups and local governments is a key to workforce development efforts.

"Partnerships are critical to our success," he said. "I'm always open to ideas that help our students."

Tager picked up on the idea of trying new things with a program to help at-risk students graduate.

"We're trying something called 'the bunker,'" he said, describing a program where students at risk of not graduating work in a designated space free from distractions to be able to focus on academic work.

"The key is, we work with parents," he said. "It's one mechanism that we're trying to help us raise our graduation rate."

Tager said the district's Flagship program, which offers students focused learning in a variety of areas from fire science to technology, is an example of the close relationship between the district and the community at large.

"We cannot do our job without community support," he said. "The Flagships are tied directly to the community."

Tager said while the overall graduation rate for Flagler is 81.1 percent, for students in the Flagship program it is 99 percent.

"When students are doing something they are interested in, all of sudden the learning becomes important to them," he said.